The Annual Report on How Much Ice Is Left

Most climate targets are argued as economics and politics; ice sheets, glaciers, sea ice and permafrost respond only to temperature, and once past certain thresholds they keep going regardless of what is agreed afterwards. The International Cryosphere Climate Initiative exists to carry that asymmetry into negotiating rooms, working with governments, NGOs and development banks on cryosphere science and policy. Its annual State of the Cryosphere report is coordinated with more than 50 leading cryosphere scientists and has become the reference document for what warming does to the frozen parts of the planet: the 2023 edition concluded that all of them face irreversible damage at 2°C, and the 2025 edition put likely thresholds for polar ice sheet stability at around 1°C of warming, with lower still for many glaciers. The reports exist to make an abstract number concrete before it is agreed to.